


they tear down the sugarcane at night

by androgyn



Category: Panic! at the Disco
Genre: M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-07-29
Updated: 2015-07-29
Packaged: 2018-04-11 22:57:01
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 915
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/4455713
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/androgyn/pseuds/androgyn
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>it's your own fundamental character flaw that made him leave. you filled your empty spaces with music, and he tried to fill his with you.</p><p>ryan's pov.</p>
            </blockquote>





	they tear down the sugarcane at night

_if all our life is but a dream-_ It should be, or at least in your perfect world, it would be. If there was any truth to the multiverse theory, there would be a world like that, somewhere far across dimensions, where he would be yours. That’s one of the primary reasons you think the theory is total bullshit. You’ve got slippery fingers, and he was never meant to land in your hands. Not even in another life. Certainly not in this one. 

It’s just that- _fantastic posing greed-_ it’s just that he wanted too much. You were so starved that your stomach was too shrunk to hold the warmth that his did. It’s not your fault. That’s what you told yourself after you were on the plane back from Cape Town, while your whole body ached for him and your bones staged a coup on the inside of your skin, ivory prisoners banging at the doors of their cells.

He pinned himself to you like a brooch to your lapel- _feed our jewelry to-_ waves turned cold with the night, salt drying on your lips- the sea. You hadn’t known it at the time, but from that night on, he’d been passed Pandora’s box. For all its colorful velvet lining the inside, it was as sharp as the edge of a cut diamond( _s do appear to be-_ ). Still, he loved the way it glowed. He’d always loved things that could shine, so you never figured out why he chose you.

But that’s just the thing, he didn’t choose you- _just like broken glass to me-_ he chose the parts of you that were already fading. He thought you were a vase when you were a mosaic with too little glue. 

He’s cut his hair shorter now. You flick through videos of his recent live performances- _and then he said he can’t believe-_ where he looks paler than usual. He’s drunk in every one of them. You want to tell him that you like the new album. It’s different, but it’s good. 

How long has it been? Six months? A year? _genius only comes in storms-_ The last time you talked to him, he spoke only in short, clipped sentences, and his voice betrayed nothing but a vast white void- _of fabled foreign tongues._ You said, after a few moments of silence, I’m sorry. He said, Okay. The word was heavy and tired. It slumped over your shoulders like leaden putty.

Eons ago, you were sitting in the grass with him. You were both high, but that was nothing new. He had picked wildflowers and made a chain (You asked, How did you learn to do that? while laughing. He said, None of your damn business, and somehow that was the funniest thing in the world to him), and it was draped over his lap, a fuse of pink and yellow sparks. _tripping eyes and flooded lungs-_ And then you leaned over and you kissed him, and that was nothing new either, but you lost your balance and your face accidentally fell into the crook of his neck, and you breathed in his smell and kissed his Adam’s apple. He pushed you back by your shoulders, and you lunged forward again, pressing your lips to his cheek, his jawline, his forehead, and he was laughing endlessly and you thought that no song you ever wrote could dream of rivaling that sound.

_northern downpour sends its love._

Flash forward, and you were in one of your moods (that’s what he called them). You couldn’t stop writing. It was nonsense, all of it, words that weren’t meant to be strung together, pure gibberish, but you couldn’t stop. _the ink is running toward the page-_ He was trying to pull you away, luring you with promises of sex or coke or whatever it was you wanted most in that moment, but you were made of iron. Invincible. Maybe that’s why you didn’t feel him losing his footing on the home he’d build inside of your chest. _it’s chasing off the days-_

There’s no way you could honestly say that you didn’t love him. _look back at both feet-_

It was just a different kind of love that he felt for you. _and that winding knee-_

One that you couldn’t handle. Because he was fire and you were wet leaves. Because he was sculpted from clay and you from dust. Because- _i missed your skin when you were east-_ he lived on solid ground and you lived on bridges. 

_you clicked your heels-_ And you tried to fill the gaps between your universes with- what, words? It was like trying to drink a glass of air. Still, you did what you could. Maybe that’s an understatement. You cut yourself into pieces for him, you gave him your ribs to use as a ladder; oh, God- _and wished for me-_

Hurried kisses in cramped bunks. _through playful lips-_ Hearts like hummingbirds. _made of yarn-_ Exchanging sweaters silently as if they were souvenirs of your misconduct. _that fragile capricorn-_ You thought that stargazing was overrated and he proved you wrong. _unravelled words like moths upon old scarves-_ The first roses of spring in the apples of his cheeks.

_i know-_

i know.

You take it day by day. Breathe in. Hold it. Breathe out. Your lungs are still bitter with the taste of his absence. One day you will clean out enough air to forget where he left his footsteps.


End file.
